Such a guide bar is clamped to a portable handheld motor-driven chain saw and is clamped between the sprocket wheel cover and the motor housing. The guide bar can be mounted to a tree harvesting machine, a so-called harvester machine, by means of a clamping plate.
Lubricating oil is introduced into the guide groove formed in the periphery of the guide bar for the saw chain. The lubricating oil enters via an oil-feed channel opening into the guide groove in the region of the groove bottom. The oil-feed channel is fed from a transverse channel lying below the groove bottom. This transverse channel has at least one entry opening on an outer side of the guide bar.
The configuration of the oil-feed channel as well as the transverse channel is costly with respect to both time and work especially for those guide bars made of solid material. Because the material of the guide bar is hardened, special drilling tools or special methods, such as eroding or laser techniques or the like, are necessary for making the channels. The transverse channel is relatively simple to make as a through bore extending perpendicularly to the guide bar. However, introducing the oil-feed channel is hindered because of the width of the guide groove. Accordingly, the oil-feed channel cannot be greater in diameter than the width of the guide groove because it must be bored or eroded from the periphery parallel to the plane of the guide bar. If the oil-feed channel would be configured to have a diameter greater than the width of the guide groove, then the guide flanges of the guide groove would also be eroded or removed because the tool runs up against the inner side of the guide flanges. Even partially abrading the guide groove to a greater depth is unsatisfactory since the strength of the guide flanges is reduced thereby. The introduction of the oil channels is greatly limited by the configuration of the oil channels as well as by the position thereof.